Tuesday, 16 September 2014

Brian Ferguson - Playing Hamlet

One could be forgiven for thinking that Brian Ferguson has just seen a ghost. As he takes a lunchtime break from rehearsals for Dominic Hill's new production of Hamlet, the actor playing the title role looks suitably haunted and not a little drained from the experience.

“It's so big to do,” a breathless Ferguson reflects. “I didn't really know, as a part, what it actually meant. Obviously every actor knows the name Hamlet and the character of Hamlet, but I wasn't very well versed in the play. I haven't seen many productions of Hamlet, so that kind of cracking it open has been mind-boggling, really, to get the opportunity to crawl around inside it has been incredible.”

Ferguson won't be drawn on Hill's approach to the play, nor to what his own interpretation of Hamlet may end up as. All he'll admit to at this stage is that, as the publicity photograph of him backed into a corner sporting a contemporary dark suit on the show's flyers suggest, “It's not done in period, but we're starting from the text, always from the text, and I think that's one of the things to discover about how incredible it is as you start uncovering what the text is doing, the pictures that it's painting, and what it wants of a scene in terms of the relationships.

“We're playing with the form a fair bit, we're playing with sound quite a lot, and we're being quite bold, I suppose, in how far out we're going in terms of trying out ideas. So the world that we have created isn't set in any particular time. There's no strict concept on it, and we've kind of gone the other way, and are being quite imaginative in how we are exploring it, and allowing it to suggest whatever it suggests. I still don't know where it's going yet, but the flavours that Dominic enjoys as a director are great for this, and are very much the same places that I like to go as an actor.”

Ferguson thinks long and hard before he chooses his words. He doesn't want to give the game away about the production, and, as he's already indicated, he's probably not entirely sure what that game is yet. When he does find the right words, they sound like poetry, and what comes through them is just how much he is relishing exploring such a rich and complex play as well as the equally intense character he's in the thick of finding out about.

“The time Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, there were these big changes going on in society,” Ferguson observes. “The chivalry of Elizabethan society and the knights were giving way to trading companies. There was also this big change in religion, going from Catholic to Protestant, and going from God being almighty and powerful to thinking about reason. The idea of Heaven and Hell was still very real. Heaven was up in the sky and Hell was beneath your feet, and what that does to your imagination, and how colourful and vivid that makes the world of the play, is really exciting.

“One of the challenges of doing Shakespeare, and one of the things that's most exciting things to someone like me, whose done a lot of new writing, is coming into this alien world where there's no subtext. It's all, all, all in the language and the pictures he paints with words, and the journeys that make you want to go on. So it's a very different process. It feels like a more physical process as an actor. Heaven and hell are things that I don't have a connection with today. I was brought up an atheist, and there are things in Shakespeare that, 415 years after it was written, don't mean as much, but sometimes you have to make your peace with the fact that the words you're saying might not be understood.”

This isn't the first time Ferguson has appeared in Hamlet. Aged seventeen, he played Polonius in a Scottish Youth Theatre production. It was while at SYT, which his mother had taken him to, that Ferguson decided he wanted to be an actor. While at drama school, he made his Citz debut playing bit parts in Stewart Laing's production of Mae West's little-seen drama, Pleasure Man. Hisfirst professional job was also at the Citizens, in the theatre's former artistic director Giles Havergal's production of Frank McGuinness' play, Observe The Sons of Ulster Marching Towards The Somme. After a year out of work, Ferguson came into his own in Davey Anderson's debut play, Snuff.

“I felt like I'd grown up a bit when I did Snuff,” he says. “I guess it felt more immediate and important to me, which was important to me as an experience and a compass. I suppose after a year out I had more of an idea of what it was that I was excited about as an actor. The things that I felt strongly and more passionate about had been put to the test.”

Ferguson appeared in Poorboy's site-specific show, Bridgebuilders, in Dundee, and shortly afterwards was cast in John Tiffany's production of Black Watch for the National Theatre of Scotland. This high-profile appearance in a show that became a phenomenon opened even more doors for Ferguson, who went on to appear in Dunsinane, David Greig's sequel of sorts to Macbeth. Produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company, Dunsinane was one of several plays Ferguson worked on with director Roxana Silbert.

Ferguson first worked with Hill at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, on Zinnie Harris' play, Fall, and The Dark Things, by Ursula Rani Sarma. Ferguson has also worked on more left-field work, including Clare Duffy's interactive piece, Money, and a recent stint at the Royal Court with Tim Crouch on a piece about two conceptual artists, Adler & Gibb.

Such diversity, he says, “It's my lifeblood,” and acting in general is a serious business.

“It's about seeking a deeper connection,” he says. “It's a place where I get to move at the pace that I enjoy moving at, and get to ponder over things and play and discover things. It gives me that space, and to do that with other people in that space, to explore and be in that place together, that's the point.”

Brian Ferguson grew up in Glasgow, where he studied at RSAMD (now Royal Conservatoire Scotland).

While still a student, Ferguson appeared at the Citizens Theatre in Stewart Laing's production of Pleasure Man by Mae West, and made his professional debut there in Observe The Sons of Ulster Marching Towards The Somme.

Ferguson appeared in Davey Anderson's play, Snuff, at the Arches, Glasgow, which was later seen at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh. Ferguson also appeared in Poorboy's production of Bridgebuilders in Dundee, and was one of the original cast of Gregory Burke's play, Black Watch, with the National Theatre of Scotland, with whom he also performed in another Davey Anderson play, Rupture.

Ferguson went on to act in The Drawer Boy at the Tron Theatre, Glasgow, and, under Dominic Hill's direction, Fall and The Dark Things at the Traverse

Ferguson appeared in Earthquakes in London at the National Theatre, and in David Greig's play, Dunsinane, produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company, with whom he also appeared in Shakespeare in A Suitcase, Richard III and The Aztec Trilogy.

Ferguson has also appeared in Clare Duffy's Money, and, at the Royal Court, Tim Crouch's play, Adler & Gibb.

About Me

Coffee-Table Notes is the online archive of Neil Cooper. Neil is an arts writer and critic based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Neil currently writes for The Herald, Product, The Quietus, Scottish Art News, Bella Caledonia and The List. He has contributed chapters to The Suspect Culture Book (Oberon), Dear Green Sounds: Glasgow's Music Through Time and Buildings (Waverley) and Scotland 2021 (Eklesia), and co-edited a special Arts and Human Rights edition of the Journal of Arts & Communities (Intellect). Neil has written for Map. Line, The Wire, Plan B, The Arts Journal, The Times, The Independent, Independent on Sunday, The Scotsman, Sunday Herald, Scotland on Sunday, Sunday Times (Scotland), Scottish Daily Mail, Edinburgh Evening News, Is This Music? and Time Out Edinburgh Guide. Neil has written essays for Suspect Culture theatre company, Alt. Gallery, Newcastle, Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art, Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, Berwick upon Tweed Film and Media Arts Festival and Ortonandon. Neil has appeared on BBC and independent radio and TV, has provided programme essays for John Good and Co, and has lectured in arts journalism at Napier University, Edinburgh.